1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens frame radially-displacing mechanism, and in particular, relates to a radially-displacing mechanism for displacing a lens frame provided in a retractable photographic lens (barrel), wherein the lens frame is displaced to a position eccentric from a photographing optical axis when the retractable photographic lens is fully retracted.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various kinds of retractable photographic lenses (photographic lens barrels) in which a part of a photographing optical system is displaced to a position eccentric from a photographing optical axis of the photographing optical system when the retractable photographic lens is fully retracted have been developed. For instance, the assignee of the present invention has proposed a structure of a retractable photographic lens which rotates a radially-displaceable lens group (and the lens frame thereof) while preventing the radially-displaceable lens group (and the lens frame thereof) from interfering with other lens groups or lens frames during the retracting operation of the retractable photographic lens when it is fully retracted. This structure is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2004-151710.
However, the retractable photographic lens of the related art is structured so that a radially-displaceable lens group and a rear lens group positioned behind the radially-displaceable lens group do not approach closer to each other than a predetermined distance to be prevented from interfering with other members when the photographic lens is fully retracted, and accordingly, the distance between the radially-displaceable lens group and the rear lens group is set to a large distance.